


gifts & grouches

by Accidie



Series: the beginnings [3]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Brief Mention of Past Child Abuse, Christmas Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sharing a Bed, Young Arthur Morgan, Young Dutch van der Linde, Young Hosea Matthews, part of a series but can be read on its own
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28237377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidie/pseuds/Accidie
Summary: The curious couple and their unruly son share a cabin during the winter.In which the bed is warm, the outside is cold, and Arthur complains about the unfairness of his chores all morning.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan & Dutch van der Linde, Hosea Matthews & Arthur Morgan, Hosea Matthews/Dutch van der Linde
Series: the beginnings [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817620
Comments: 12
Kudos: 70





	gifts & grouches

There was much he was willing to do for Hosea and Dutch. They had fed him, clothed him, and taken care of him when no one else did. He owed a lot to them. 

Still, he couldn’t help but feel like some demands were too much even from them. 

Like leaving the warmth of their shared bed to feed the fire at the end of the room, especially since it meant going all the way outside, out in the snow, to get more wood from the shed. 

It felt even more unreasonable of them to wake him up for that request. 

“Arthur,” Dutch continues to complain when he still refuses to get up from his side of the bed. “Come on son, don’t be lazy now.” 

“I’m still sleeping,” he groans into the mattress. “Why can’t any of you do it?” 

“We had a vote when you were asleep,” Dutch says. “And we elected you to do it. Democracy, ain’t it nice?” 

That really didn’t seem to be fair. 

“Do it yourselves,” he snaps, “I did it yesterday.” 

And the day before, and the day before that. But he doesn’t say that, afraid that he might sound too whiny. 

“Just let us old men rest, Arthur,” Hosea sighs. 

“Dutch ain’t old.” 

“You hear that, Hosea?” Dutch says with a yawn. “He thinks you’re old.” 

“He called himself old first!” he argues, but to deaf ears. 

“Insulting me like that,” Hosea says, “Now you really ought to go get that wood.” 

Arthur plays with the idea of just ignoring them and pretending that he really is asleep this time. But then Dutch starts to prod him with his foot, apparently too lazy, or just to lovesick, to let go of Hosea’s waist. 

“Come on,” Dutch says, his foot aiming light kicks at his ankles. “Just get up, please.” 

Cursing under his breath, he finally moves to sit up, casting a glare at the two other men, both just lying there like they had no care in the world. 

“It ain’t like the two of you are very discrete about it, you know,” he grumbles, making a show out of putting on his shoes, just to make sure Dutch and Hosea knew how displeased he was. Already shivering from the cold of the room, he quickly puts on his coat, a threadbare old thing that used to belong to Hosea and that did little to warm him up. Not that he would admit to it, no, not when it took a whole heap of begging to Hosea to let him keep it to begin with. 

“Discrete about what?” Dutch asks. 

“I know you only send me out so you two can smooch without me seeing,” he replies, quickly shutting the door behind him, not waiting to hear their reaction. 

Whatever victory he felt from getting the last word, is short-lived as soon as the freezing outside air hits him. If he thought the cabin was cold, he was not at all prepared for _this,_ cursing himself for not even bothering with dressing up completely, the union suit and his coat doing nothing to protect him from the chill. 

Grumbling even more, he quickly makes his way towards the small shed in which the wood was stored, struggling slightly to move in the snow. 

Well, at least it was light outside, he muses, and the landscape was pretty. How anyone could leave such a nice place behind was something he failed to understand.   
But then again, there wasn’t much to do so far away from the nearest town. It must get lonely after a while, even if whoever lived there before had a family. 

He, at least, had Hosea and Dutch, even though they could be insufferable at times. 

The thought of them brings back his previous annoyance. Making him do errands all the time just so they could kiss in peace, as if he didn’t know what they got up to while he was away.   
He didn’t mind the two of them being in love, or whatever they were, but he did mind that they forced him out of the bed so early in the morning, with no regard for the fact that he still was sleepy. 

Although, perhaps it was only fair of them to make those demands of him. They had taken him in out of the goodness of their hearts and had given him more than he ever could repay. Had been kinder than anyone he had ever met, and actually seemed to enjoy his company. 

Still, he thinks grouchily, pulling at the shed door, having to kick away a lot of snow to even be able to get it open, he didn’t like that they made him leave the bed when it was so cold outside. If that made him whiny, well, then whiny he was. 

Standing in front of the woodpile, he curses himself again, this time for forgetting his gloves. With a sigh, he starts to grab the wooden pieces as carefully as possible, putting two pieces in each pocket of the coat, and then two more underneath his arm. 

It should be enough to last them through the day, at least. And if not, he would stand his ground this time and make sure either Hosea or Dutch were the ones collecting more while he was the one lazing about inside. 

He’s almost out of the door when he spots it. 

A parcel, standing on top of one of the firewood stacks. 

He could have sworn it hadn’t been there yesterday. 

Placing his foot in front of the door to make sure it didn’t close on him, he grabs it, the heaviness of it surprising him. 

With the parcel in one hand, the pieces of wood underneath the other, he makes his way to the cabin again, having to waddle this time, once again feeling annoyed at his current situation. 

They should’ve just have kept a pile of wood inside the main cabin, it would have made everything much easier. 

“You can stop locking lips now,” he shouts through the door, “It’s Arthur, let me in!” 

_‘It’s Arthur’_ , he chides himself. _Of_ course it’s Arthur. Who else would it be?   
He really wasn’t the brightest, his pa was right about that. 

It’s Hosea who opens the door, hair disheveled in a way that really made it obvious that he had been right all along. 

“I found this in the shed,” he says, doing his hardest to lift up the package so that Hosea could take a look at it. 

“Well, wonder what that could be,” Hosea responds, his tone strange, taking it from his outreached hands. 

After stomping a bit to get rid of the snow from his shoes, Arthur follows Hosea inside. Spotting Dutch still sprawled out on the bed, Arthur has to stop himself from following through with the impulse to throw some snow at him. 

“Dutch, Arthur found something in the shed,” Hosea says. 

“Did he now?” is the reply from Dutch, sounding excited. 

“It got some sort of note,” Hosea says, inspecting the parcel, an amused look on his face. “Why don’t you try to read it while I get the fire going, son?” 

“First you force me out in the snow, now you’re making me read?” Arthur says, hating how whiny his voice sounds, disgruntledly accepting the parcel back. “I’m not even good at it yet.” 

It didn’t seem like he would get to go back to bed anytime soon. Sitting down on the chair right next to the fire, he starts trying to make sense of what the note was saying, the fine, elegant handwriting being impossible to understand. 

“This ain’t even legible,” he says after spending almost a minute trying to decipher the note, “What’s the deal of writing like this if it takes ages to understand?” 

This brings a hearty laugh out of Dutch. “It’s not that difficult,” the man says. “Just take one word at a time.” 

_It is that difficult_ , he wants to argue, hell, he can barely write his own name, it was just recently Dutch started to teach him how to read. 

Perhaps sensing his discomfort, and for the first time in that morning taking pity upon him, Dutch gets up from the bed, coming to stand next to him, and just for a second, Arthur thinks Dutch is going to take over the reading duty. 

Instead, the man just places a warm hand on his shoulder, clasping it gently.   
“It’s for you, son,” Dutch says softly. 

_Wait_ \- 

“What?” he asks, his throat dry all of sudden. 

“It’s Christmas.” 

“Christmas?” he echoes. 

He hadn’t celebrated that in years. 

Hell, he didn’t even think _they_ celebrated that. Dutch had never seemed like a religious man, and Hosea- well, he was Jewish. 

“We would have gotten you more,” Hosea says from the left of him, busy with making coffee. “But you always put up such a fuss whenever we try to get something for you.” 

“I don’t,” he protests weakly. 

_God_ , they must have planned it for quite some time, it was weeks ago since the two of them last went into town. And they must have snuck out when he was asleep just to place the gift in the shed, all to surprise him. 

Fuck, in the past, during all those years he had tried his hardest to forget, he would have considered himself lucky if his pa left him alone during the day. That had been a gift enough for him, made him happy, or at least relieved, enough to want to live through the day. 

And here Dutch and Hosea were, always being so goddamn nice to him, even though they had known him for less than a year. 

“Come on, open it,” Dutch says, breaking through his thoughts. “Or are you still too grumpy to do that?” 

He carefully undoes the twine tied around the package, pocketing it in case he would need it for later, and just as carefully unwraps the thick wrapping paper, not wanting it to rip, the lessons from his mom about wastefulness still deeply ingrained in him, slowly revealing an oak case. 

He doesn’t need to try to read the letters on it to know what’s inside. Doesn’t even need to open the case, but he does it anyway because he wants to see it. 

Inside is a revolver. 

He’s almost scared to touch it, the shiny metal, the polished wooden grip; all seemed too clean and new for his hands. 

“I don’t know how to shoot,” he admits. 

“By now, you should know we intend to teach you all that you already don’t know,” Dutch says, squeezing down on his shoulder. “If you are gonna run with us, you need to be able to use a gun.” 

“Hopefully you won’t ever need to use it,” Hosea adds, “But who knows what the future brings?” 

The future. 

They had a plan for the future, and it involved him. It shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does, they had, after all, never given him a reason to think they wanted to get rid of him. 

But they had never really made him think that they expected him to stay, _wanted it,_ until now. 

All the faith, all the time and effort, and money they had put into him. 

He hoped that he one day would have something to show for it. _No_ , he would damn well make sure he did. 

“So,” he says, not being able to stop the smile that cracks open his face from ear to ear. “When is the first lesson?” 

He couldn’t wait to get started. 

**Author's Note:**

> once again back at it with the incredibly cheesy dynamics between these three. I couldn't resist the temptation to write a Christmas fic. I hope you enjoyed this, and please let me know if you did!


End file.
